SIDWELL BACKS ALBION TO LEARN FROM DEFEAT

29 January 2017

Kieran Cleeves

Sidwell highlighted the physicality of Lincoln's playing style.

Brighton & Hove Albion midfielder Steve Sidwell believes his team-mates can learn a lot from their 3-1 defeat to Lincoln City yesterday, and highlighted the importance of dealing with teams that play a different style of football.

The Seagulls exited the Emirates FA Cup in the fourth round, and Sidwell compared Lincoln’s playing style to Cardiff City’s, a team Albion narrowly overcame before their trip to Sincil Bank.

He said, “You look at the Cardiff game, the teams are similar in their style of play, and when that happens, you know you’re going to come under situations when they’ll be on top and the crowd are behind them.

“But you’ve got to keep compact, weather the storm and chances will come. We did that against Cardiff but we didn’t do that today [Saturday].

“We came unstuck against their style of play, so we know that if we come up against teams in the Championship that are going to be doing that, we know what to do and hopefully we can do it better than we did today.”

Sidwell expressed his frustration at Albion’s cup exit to the National League side, and felt the cheap nature of the goals conceded was the most disappointing factor.

“We’re obviously very disappointed. We came in 1-0 up at half-time, comfortable, but there were passages of play that we had to deal with.

“We knew what their threat would be, so we had to stick at it because we knew they would come on even stronger in the second half.

“They got goals at the right times for them. They were three disappointing goals to give away, that’s the way that we have to look at it.”

Sidwell commented on the loud support the Imps received throughout the game, and applauded Danny Cowley’s side for their impressive performance.

“That does happen [loud support], but you just have to ride the storm. We needed to be strong, compact, and chances would come.

“But fair credit to them; they had their game plan, stuck at it and worked very hard. This was their cup final and I suppose, at the end of it, you could say they deserved to go through.

“We’ve got a really tough February coming up, so now we can solely concentrate on that.”